The United
Steelworkers (USW) joined members of Congress and private sector experts on
Wednesday in declaring that the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS-FTA)
has “fallen far short of job promises and improvements in trade balances,”
following Saturday’s second anniversary of the trade law.

“Government data,
congressional voices, and economic studies confirm that the US-Korea Free
Trade Agreement has failed us,” USW President Leo Gerard said. “It has
failed to produce good jobs and the evidence on exports is clear. Our export
growth rate in the past 20-out-of -21 months is below the average monthly
level seen before the FTA was signed.

“What’s astounding
is the monthly imports from Korea are up 4 percent and the monthly U.S.
trade deficit with Korea has ballooned 45 percent when compared to the pre-FTA
level,” Gerard said. “The damage from KORUS and other free trade deals have
been shown by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) to have caused the loss of
tens-of-thousands of good-paying U.S. manufacturing jobs.”

“The U.S.-South
Korea trade deficit has reached a historic high of $20.67 billion this year,
which is a $7.4 billion (56 percent) increase from 2011--the year before
KORUS took effect,” the USW said. “And the government numbers continue to
get worse in each of the following years with U.S. exports down $1.8 billion
since 2011 and $700 million since 2012.”

“These trade
imbalances cost us more lost jobs,” Gerard said. “This unsustainable trade
imbalance is undermining the economic well-being of American workers. If
law-makers in Washington spent as much time worrying about our country’s
trade deficit as they did the government’s budget deficit, our country would
have more family-supportive jobs and a better trade policy.”

“Trade data for the
first year of the FTA document exports of manufactured metal products to
Korea fell 8 percent,” the USW said. “Exported manufactured wood, paper, and
petroleum products have all fallen 3 percent. Thousands of USW members are
employed in the sectors of steel, aluminum, copper, paper and petroleum
products.”

The trade data also
shows that the U.S. overall trade deficit with the 11 countries currently
participating in negotiations of the flawed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
is $154 billion. If TPP has the same negative and growing impact as KORUS,
American job losses and the effect of trade imbalances will multiply.

Meanwhile, U.S.
vehicle exports to Korea totaled 14,819 units in 2011 and increased to
27,553 units in 2013, the USW said. But Korea’s exports to the United States
grew from 587,328 to 752,675 units over the same period. “The entire annual
increase in U.S. vehicle exports to Korea are dwarfed by less than one-month
of the increase alone in Korea’s exports.”

“The failures of
the Korea FTA show why future trade deals need to eliminate non-tariff trade
barriers; include strong rules of origin; develop enforceable labor and
environmental standards; and stop our country’s focus on negotiating
enhanced protections for corporations at the expense of workers’ rights,”
Gerard said. “And, these provisions need to be backed up by strong
implementation and enforcement provisions to guarantee results.”